When I bought my first digital camera in 1996, I was the only person I knew that had a digital camera. I had to explain it as a “computer camera” when folks asked what it was. No one knew the term “digital camera” yet.
Even when I’d visit Disneyland, no one had them. You’d see the occasional camcorder or film camera, but no one was snapping away digital … yet. That changed quickly.
Later, I took a 3-D camcorder attachment on a trip, recording interlaced 3-D to Digital8 video tapes.
Around 2005, I took a “one shot panorama” camera gadget to the parks. You would point the camera up, where it would take a photo of the bottom of a half mirror ball. Software would later turn that in to a panorama with limited up/down viewing. This was the predecessor to the 360 cameras we have today.
When I “returned” to Disneyland in 2017, I took my RICOH Theta VR360 camera with me. I have never shared any of these photos before (there really wasn’t an easy way to share them back then), but I have started uploading them to my “Park Hopping in VR” YouTube group:
There are now over 26,000 photos in this gallery. New additions include:
Branson Treehouse Adventure – tour the “Captain’s Quarters” treehouse.
Branson Landing – including the water and fire show designed by W.E.T. (former Walt Disney Imagineer, if I recall).
Showboat Branson Belle – Built in 1995 (?), this large paddle boat cruises Table Rock Lake while visitors dine and watch a live music/dancing stage show.
Retromania – revisiting their New Wave Cafe.
Flaming Margarita’s – both the original Mexican food location, and the American Kitchen restaurant. These are hidden gems in the area, with top notch service and food offerings — a very surprising find.
Downtown Branson – check out Farmhouse Restaurant, establishedin the 1970s.
Billy Gail’s – a phenomenal “Southern cooking” eatery. Sweet tea, fried okra, and 14″ pancakes!
To this day, this is one of the funniest quotes I remember from Disney World.
There was a time when Disney was seen as safe and squeaky clean, but as times change, we have seen more and more once-wholesome things be removed from the parks (or edited from movies or songs).
I decided to post this quote here in case anyone else ends up searching for it. We’ll see if someone comments, either asking about it, or naming what it is from.
Ever since stumbling across some YouTube videos for Omega Mart (the Meow Wolf “art installation” in Las Vegas), I have been curious about just what these places are.
Now, after seeing the Meow Wolf Denver location – Convergence Station – I still don’t know.
But it was more, so much more, than I expected.
Super well done. One of these would fit right at home at Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando somewhere.
Details to come. But wow. Just wow. We spent almost seven hours exploring, and are know we still missed areas that we’ve seen on their video tours.
Here is 10 minutes of VR 360 video from Butterfly Palace and Rainforest Adventure in Branson, MO. You can look left, right, up, down and even behind you from various locations.
4/28/2024
This video was recorded using an Insta360 X4. It was set to 8K mode using all automatic settings. This should give folks an idea of what the quality is like “out of the box” without making any adjustments.
NOTE: YouTube appears to downsize the video to 4K 🙁
I remember visiting Silver Dollar City as a teenager in 1984. Forty years later, I returned. Here is what I learned.
The late 1800s theme of Silver Dollar City is like stepping back in time, but so is the entire theme park experience. The first shock is that parking is free. Today, most theme parks charge more for parking your car than an entire theme park ticket would have cost just a few decades ago. You can, of course, pay for closer parking, but if you are showing up early, you’ll be parked right along the border of the first tier of pay parking, so keep that in mind. They also have shuttles (the “Welcome Wagons”) to take you to the front entrance, in case the five minute walk is too much for you.
When it comes to admission, the prices seemed kind of high. As of 2024, the ticket costs where:
Adult (12-64) – $89 (2-day for $109, 3-day for $119)
Child (4-11) – $79
There are significant savings when buying a 2-day or 3-day ticket, as expected.
Silver Dollar City also offers season passes (not “annual” passes). A season pass is good for going during that season (2024), so if you bought one three weeks before the end of the season, you’d only get to use it for those three weeks.
The 2024 Season Passes were priced as follows:
Diamond – $279
Gold – $219
Silver – $159
The entry-level $159 pass gives you “unlimited visits” and a 10% discount off food and beverages. It is clearly cheaper to buy this pass if you planned to visit two times during the year, but if you were just going to go a few days in a row, and that is all, a day ticket is cheaper. (Just keep in mind, if you ate $100 of food, the pass would save you $10 off that, so depending on your food habits, your break-even might come sooner.)
It is the $219 and $279 pass that interested me, because they come with bonus “Bring-A-Friend” tickets, each good for a specific date range. For example, the Gold pass gives a bonus ticket:
March 28-May 10
May 11-June 7
June 8-July 12
August 5-18
December 2-30 (but not on a Saturday)
For Diamond, you get those dates, plus…
August 22-September 16
…and, Diamond also includes access to their White Water water park, and includes two bonus tickets for that as well.
You can also buy discount tickets (only one per day) for $40 if you have Gold, or $20 if you have Diamond.
Why does this matter?
Let’s say Mom, Dad and Daughter are going to Silver Dollar City one day, and one day only. If they buy tickets, it would be:
Mom – $89
Dad – $89
Daughter – $78
That is $256 before taxes and service fees. The full price will be $280.50 with taxes ($20.50) and online service fee ($3.00).
A Gold pass is $219 and it lets you buy an extra ticket for $40. For a party of three, Dad could buy a $219 pass, then use a Bring-A-Friend ticket for Mom, and $40 ticket for Daughter, making it cost $269. That is not a savings for this one trip, but clearly would be after a second visit versus single day tickets.
However, the Diamond pass includes a floating Bring-A-Friend ticket that can be used any time during the season — which means Dad could buy the $279 Diamond pass, then use one Bring-a-Friend for Mom, and the bonus Bring-A-Friend for Daughter, getting them all in for $279 ($303.30 after $23.30 in tax, and $1.00 in fees).
That means that the price difference of buying individual tickets ($280.50) versus a Diamond pass ($303.30) is just $22.80! If you buy meals in the park, the 20% discount Diamond gives can easily recover that. A $50 meal saves $10 right there, plus the Diamond (and Gold) pass come with a refill mug that gives you free drinks that first day (or pay $10.99 extra to upgrade it to “free drinks any time you visit all year”). Wowza.
If you absolutely knew you will never be coming back to Silver Dollar City, and absolutely know you don’t be spending more than $105 or so on food for three all day, then day tickets may be cheaper. But once you have that 20% food discount, it makes every meal purchase feel that much better.
And, if you are the type that would have bought the “drink al day refill mug” anyway, that’s an $17.99 savings because you get one with the pass.
It’s a tremendously good deal. I had no intention to buy a season pass for Silver Dollar City, but once I did the math, it just made sense. Just sitting and eating twice saved more than the tiny price difference from day tickets to season pass!
And now it means a road trip weekend gets cheaper, since Dad has a season pass, and if the trip is during a different Bring-A-Friend time, Mom will get another free ticket, and Daughter can get in for just $20.
And, considering the high cost of the separate attractions all around Branson, Missouri ($27 just to go to the amazing Butterfly Palace), having a Silver Dollar City pass gives cheap access to live entertainment, rides, discounted food and more.
Hope this helps… Photos from Silver Dollar City will be coming to my Theme Parks gallery as soon as I have time to sort them.
“It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission.”
Grace Murray Hopper
Although there is logic to this famous quote, I prefer to follow the rules when I am at a theme park. Many rules are there for safety reasons, after all. Other rules are there just because that is what the owner wants on their property. Fair enough.
If you do a bit of searching, you will find countless tales of folks getting kicked out of parks — or even having their annual/season pass revoked — for rule breaking. Others, however, freely break rules and share their exploits on YouTube and never get caught.
A big rule that gets broken is “no video recording.” You can find many mainstream YouTubers that frequently share videos taken in attractions that have signs clearly posted saying “no video recording.” Sometimes these are recorded at special publicity events where influencers are invited, or at a special before or after hours “coaster party” where they allow it, but generally they are just rule breaking. And often they know it —they will even include clips of the signs that say “no video recording.” 😉
I have been documenting theme parks through digital photos and video since 1996. When I visit a new park, I reach out to them to get clarification on the photography and video restrictions. Before a recent trip to Silver Dollar City, I watched many YouTube videos taken on pretty much every ride in the park. But, I did not assume this was allowed.
I contactedthe park for clarification — specifically about RiverBlast, a boat/water ride they had which is a version of a ride that is being installed at Universal’s upcoming Epic Universe park.
Thank you for reaching out to us. We greatly appreciate the email.
Regarding your request, River Blast is considered a ride at the park, so cameras and selfie sticks are not permitted on the ride, along with chest mounts and wrist mounts.
We definitely encourage you to take photos and videos of our park in guest-accessible areas. Regarding our rides, recording and photography are permitted only on the Frisco Silver Dollar Line steam train (so long as you keep all parts of your body inside the train cars) and Flooded Mine (same as the steam train).
Monopods and selfie sticks are typically fine while walking around the park so long as they don’t interfere with other families enjoying their day at the park.
Please let me know if you have any other questions I can help you with.
Thank you!
Silver Dollar City Communications Manager
So there you go. The only two rides they allow recording on are the Frisco Silver Dollar Line steam train, and the Flooded Mine shooting gallery boat ride.
If you see other videos that were clearly recorded during normal public hours of the park, you are likely just seeing rule breakers 😉
When I first moved to Des Moines, Iowa in 1995, locals started telling me about a restaurant in town where they would “pour a shake on your head.” That place was Stella’s Blue Sky Diner which had two locations operating back then, but today is long out-of-business.
But not because they “poured a shake on your head.”
Somewhere along the lines, I heard about a restaurant that was famous for “throwing dinner rolls at you.” I was never curious enough to look in to where and what this restaurant was since I assumed it would be another play-on-words like at Stella’s.
However… I have no been there, and now I know what “throw a dinner roll at you” actually means.
